AIBU: MNHQ's thoughts and what you can do

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello there

We've seen a fair number of posts recently about AIBU, and specifically about whether there's a problem in terms of some posters being gratuitously aggressive, even if the posts aren't particularly guideline-breaking in any other way.

We've done some careful monitoring of AIBU over the last couple of weeks and... We agree. Quite a few threads in AIBU do seem to veer off into a pointlessly unpleasant direction with very little provocation.

So from now on, we're going be looking out for posters who seem to put the boot in a bit too readily, and we'll be dropping them "polite mails" asking them to draw their horns in a bit. (And then if they carry on, we'll take further action.)

We'll also remove the text from the header about AIBU not being a fight club, because it's possible that this was (perversely) prompting people to think it was a fight club.

We'd really, really like to enlist your help in making AIBU a more pleasant and constructive place to post.

First off, please don't feel you have wait for an MNHQ response: the MN forums are what you, collectively, make of them, and you can set the tone. If you think an OP is being rounded on, go on and post - and say (without making personal attacks) if you think other posts have crossed a line in terms of meanness or aggression. (Feel free to refer posters back to this thread!)

But also, please report. Not necessarily because you think a post is deletable, but if you think a poster could do with getting one of our polite mails.

To be completely clear: AIBU is exactly the same as all the other topics on Mumsnet, and the same rules apply. Ideally, we want MN to be a place where people can discuss, share, entertain each other, and seek advice and support. It's not a place for posters to take lumps out of each other for no reason, and with no intention of offering constructive/interesting/funny input.

Thanks,
MNHQ

higgle genuinely held views that others don't have to agree with, debate or respond to, especially when they've said not now, not the time or the place. You were not being set on for holding those views but for insisting people listen to them, and adhere to them, that's the point people and MNHQ were trying to get through to you and others.

Frankly on the kitten thread the posters airing their opinions on spaying and continually badgering the OP to respond were only doing it to set on her and give her a savaging.

I just do my bit for mainstream Daily Mail readers of a certain age to bing a bit of reality to things

Seriously I think level headed people from conventional backgrounds need to stand up for their views otherwise this place becomes seriously weird.

Who was the religious fanatic, Higgle?

I think you've missed the feminist point about waxing.

Anyone's entitled to their views on any subject, but not to rudely plaster those views all over somebody else's conversation. Respect, tact and a bit of diplomacy are required in written conversations as much as spoken.

IRL the Higgle you describe would barge into a group of unknown women discussing their pets at a cocktail bar, pull up a chair and sit down to talk loudly over them about the perils of animal fertility, demanding personal details from the strangers. One woman would probably start crying. Higgle would be removed from her unappointed post by staff members.

It's not okay to behave like that.

You were not being set on for holding those views but for insisting people listen to them and adhere to them

Yes. You were being a bully.

Anyone on here can stand up for their views (within the Talk Guidelines) but it doesn't mean anyone has to listen or take note of them.

Exactly Garlic, in rl if someone says "I don't want to discuss that at this moment in time" that's it you shut up, you don't go on and on in full lecture mode haraunging them relentlessly.

Oh, but you must discuss these things right now. Otherwise if you don't, you are a bad person and everyone like you is a bad person and deserves public hostility.

"No-one owes you an answer to a question, an explanation or a debate."

Yes.

It would also be ace if there was compulsory time stamp checking - on occasion, a thread goes mad and gets 100 responses in 30 mins or something and then posters start to say "ah, I see the OP has vanished" when maybe she's off having a bath or her dinner or whatever!

I do agree someone should be allowed to air their point of view even if it is controversial without having battery acid poured over them. It's easy enough to say I don't agree and these are my reasons for disagreeing, but what happens isn't particularly civilised.

The lady who is fat and fab shouldn't be harangued because she is fat with all this 'it's unhealthy, diabetes, blah blah blah' that's not the point of her post. But if people said I'm overweight too but it's affecting my self confidence, how do I raise my self esteem? Or I'm overweight but want to lose a few pounds is WW any good? And so on. Not bloody lecturing her about her health, that wasn't the point of the post.

Sorry...commenting on a post

And I ate the fecking Magnum and bugger JJ for telling me I am overweight

Well. Some of us don't believe that people who hold Daily Mail views are "level headed" you see.

I like to do my bit for Daily Mail burning deep thinking people.

Not all Daily Mail Readers hold Daily Mail views, pay attention!

I can't read it without being sick like the vomiting woman on Little Britain.

higgle but they do insists on you hearing those views whether you want to or not.

apologies for the extra s on insist.

I would support removing AIBU..as much as I like it and have posted there , I find lately people post on there but cannot accept that people don't agree they are being unreasonable.. Which leads to a whole us v them mentality in the thread...why not call it " I Just Want To Have A Moan" or something like that which is clearly about getting things off your chest rather than opening a debate ?